


Mark me, I'm yours

by kitbuckle



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Dethan, Gen, Multi, POV Danny Mahealani, inspired by blacklight bodypainting, it's kind of a Stonehenge AU not gonna lie, kind of, with Dothraki sprinkles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-10 21:05:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1164511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitbuckle/pseuds/kitbuckle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Danny saw them, he knew to stay away. The twins, though his age or not many years older, had viciousness in their eyes and sharp-ended whorls of poison-frog green on their shoulders and chests and jaw-corners. Their marks were so aggressive, so armor-like, so dissimilar to Danny's.</p><p>"Those are the twins from Deucalion's tribe," Stiles said. "They're tough. The rumors are not good, and their history with us is worse."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mark me, I'm yours

**Author's Note:**

> So this sorta exploded out of me after seeing this post (http://kit-moosebuckle.tumblr.com/post/75278075241) on tumblr and watching a documentary on Stonehenge and reading several Sterek Game of Thrones AUs and...I dunno. I like it.

The first time Danny saw them, he knew to stay away. The twins, though his age or not many years older, had viciousness in their eyes and sharp-ended whorls of poison-frog green on their shoulders and chests and jaw-corners. Their marks were so aggressive, so armor-like, so dissimilar to Danny's.

"Those are the twins from Deucalion's tribe," Stiles said. Recently he'd taken to wearing his marks (the same as Danny's) in dark red instead of blue—it suited him.

"How many?" Danny asked. He never questioned how Stiles knew, because Stiles always wound up right.

"Deucalion, twins, and two others," said Stiles. "They're tough. The rumors are _not_ good, and their history with us is worse."

The trouble was, the twins were beautiful, and at least one of them had an interest in Danny—they were true twins, so at the beginning Danny had a hard time telling if one or both of them were flirting with him. It only took about a day to figure it out, though; anyone who spent more than a minute with Ethan and Aiden could tell them apart by disposition. Aiden sought power in any situation, bared teeth first and talked later, and stalked Lydia like a pup chasing a butterfly.

Ethan was different—not on the first day, but even then Danny could see most of what he hid: a more moderate and reflective nature, a better sense for people and what they valued or wanted, and an inherent sincerity in everything he said and did. Couple all that with the passion and love of a challenge he shared with Aiden, the gleam in his eyes, and Danny was comfortable admitting that he was interested right back.

"He's trying to use you," Stiles said, the morning of the second day, as they were walking through the small market. "The same as Aiden with Lydia. They’re just looking for our weak spots.”

"They helped kill Boyd," said Allison, "and their tribe-mate killed Erica."

Danny looked away. "I know." He hadn’t known them, not well, and he hadn’t been a McCall back then. “You can’t always trust the rumor mill. It never churns out anything interesting anyway.”

"I dunno." Allison said. "I liked the one about Stiles and Derek being driven mad by their mutual lovers' passion and plotting to overthrow Scott as our tribe leader." She'd been experimenting with her mark colors ever since she and Scott separated for good—today they were dark green.

Stiles covered his face with his hands. "Oh my gods, must we?"

"Until the day you die," said Lydia, marching up to them, her black marks stark against her pale skin and red hair. "And I'll know when that is, so I'll be sure to tell you. Now stop spending what we don’t have, there's work to do."

Stiles flapped his arms at the dusty sea of not-quite-humanity around them. "What work? The tribal talks don't start until tomorrow, our territory and our tents are secure, and not one of us has sentry duty for a few days. It's midsummer, we're supposed to be having fun."

Lydia crossed her arms and squared her posture to Stiles', which Danny knew to be a (delightfully) bad sign. "Derek's refusing to leave our camping ground even though he's our best shot at renewing the Hales' alliances, Peter's missing, and Scott trusts Isaac to behave unsupervised, which we all know to be a significant mistake with this many people around. Tribe first."

"Tribe first," Stiles, Danny, and Allison said together.

Allison said, "I'll take Isaac."

Stiles said, "I've got Derek."

Danny said, "I'll find Peter."

Lydia said, "I'll help Scott."

Objectively, Danny knew they made an impression as a tribe: four wolves, a banshee, a hunter, and two dangerously smart young men whose moral compasses never truly pointed north. There was something about that moment, though, that dusty afternoon at the midsummer gathering, as the four of them turned down the same path and walked in step together. Danny saw the faces of the other tribes' members, saw the way their eyes lingered on Allison's bow, Stiles' knives, Danny's staff, and Lydia's lack of any weapon at all. He saw the way their eyes lingered on their torsos, strong and bare but for their marks and the women's breast bindings (to keep them out of the way, Lydia had said, otherwise they tended to flap around at inopportune moments). He and his friends wore their collar-marks like golden torcs, proud and fierce and an unspoken challenge to everyone: come and get us, if you dare.

-

One of the reasons the other tribes stared so was because in addition to being one of the larger wolf-tribes, Danny's was also the newest and had the youngest members. Wolf-tribes didn't usually have as many humans as wolves in them, either, and the most humans considered it a nearly-impossible-to-obtain status. Danny could see why—better protection, better-looking tribe-mates, better likelihood of getting your way with fangs and claws to back you up—but he thought that was a narrow way of looking at it. Anybody who spent enough time with Derek, Isaac, and Peter would understand that you had to be a _very_ certain kind of person to put up with it as a tribe-mate.

But, not everyone could be as smart as him.

He was walking back from sentry duty when it happened. It was the first time he'd been alone since arriving at the gathering ground. The hearth-keepers were just kindling their fires for the first meal of the day. A man's voice said, "Your knees sore yet, _McCall_?"

Danny kept walking. They couldn't hurt him with that name.

"Which one did you bitch yourself out to for those marks?"

Danny stopped and sighed. Names were one thing. Names changed. Marks were sacred. His marks were Scott's marks, and Derek's and Peter's, and Erica's and Boyd's and Jackson's. Now he had to deal with this. He faced his heckler, a young man brown-haired and skinny with angry calculation in his eyes. His marks were straight horizontal lines across his shoulders and ribs.

"My marks I earned, Daehler, same as you."

Daehler's mouth twisted. "Earned them on your back or all fours, unlike me."

Danny raised a brow and gestured to the scars on his sides. "I got these while under a wolf, sure, but not in the way you mean. He regretted it soon enough, as you will if you don't go to my alpha and apologize."

Daehler's smug expression flickered when he noticed the long, dark lines on Danny's ribs, but he soon recovered it. "Your _alpha_? Going native, McCall?"

Danny sighed again and leaned on his staff. "You know how this goes. Apologize to the leader of my tribe for disrespecting our marks, or commit to a challenge. If you continue talking, I will consider it consent to the challenge."

Daehler sneered. "Unusual, considering your _tribe's_ regard for consent."

Danny restrained himself from a blow to the head—instead, Danny’s staff caught Daehler in the neck. As Daehler stumbled, Danny spun into a new stance and brought his staff down two-handed on Daehler's back. Daehler landed in the dirt, the end of Danny's staff resting against his temple. "Do you yield?"

Daehler growled and coughed when he inhaled dust from the ground. Danny pressed his staff a little harder. "Do you yield. I know I didn't hit you where it would hurt your voice."

"I yield," Daehler croaked.

"As the victor in this challenge, my terms are that you apologize to my alpha for disrespecting our tribe's marks, and submit yourself to his judgment."

Daehler squirmed under Danny's staff and said nothing.

"I'd submit to his terms, Daehler."

Danny lifted his eyes to see Ethan, his arms crossed and a wide grin on his face. There was a strange warmth in his eyes, one that Danny had felt himself and seen when people looked at him.

Daehler slumped. "I submit."

Danny felt a thrill at the words and pushed it down deep. He pulled Daehler up and hobbled Daehler's arms—his staff hooked under Daehler's elbows and behind Daehler's back.

"Do you mind if I tag along?" Ethan asked. "I could bear witness if this has to go before the grounds-chief."

Danny tilted his head to indicate assent and started marching Daehler down the path toward the McCall camping grounds. By the time they got there, Stiles was already browning oatcakes on a flat rock over their hearth-fire. He quirked a brow at Danny, Daehler, Ethan, and the small crowd they'd picked up along the way. Tribes from the surrounding camping grounds came out to see, as well. Derek sat with Stiles, renewing the marks on his biceps (blue, lighter than Danny's, the same color as his wolf-eyes). He didn't stand, but his gaze sharpened as he called, "Scott."

Scott stepped out of their tent halfway through the word. On stature alone, Scott didn't look the part of alpha or tribe leader. He was too short, too lean, too open in expression. But the way he held himself, like he knew his worth and expected respect accordingly, and the bright red marks winding around the alpha tattoo on his arm commanded something in everyone, human or wolf. He took in the sight of Danny, Daehler, and Ethan with a mildly disbelieving expression, like he couldn't believe his tribe-mate had brought him trouble this early in the day.

"Danny?"

Danny twisted his staff, making Daehler hiss. "This man of the Daehler tribe insulted me as I was returning from sentry duty, without provocation, in such a way that demanded a response."

Scott looked surprised at the formal language, but he kept the stone rolling. "How did he insult you?"

"He disrespected the marks of my body, and the marks of my tribe."

Scars _and_ sacred marks. Derek and Stiles stood up. Scott frowned, and the air around him changed like the air before a storm.

"I offered him the choice: apologize or challenge, and I would take more insulting speech as consent to a challenge. Daehler chose the challenge." Stiles' grin was unabashedly proud, and Danny had to bite back his responding smile. "I bested him. He submitted to my terms. Ethan was witness to all of this."

Scott looked at Ethan. "What did you witness?"

"All that Danny has spoken of," said Ethan, still smiling. "I had sentry duty at the northern post, and was returning to my grounds as well, when I came upon the scene. Danny spoke truly and fairly."

Scott looked back at Danny and Daehler. "What are the terms?"

"To apologize for his disrespect and submit to your judgment."

Scott walked forward, over the edge of their camping grounds, onto public territory. He stopped in front of Daehler. Daehler wouldn't even look up. Scott leaned in and said, lowly, "If you fail to deliver on the terms, I'm meant to discipline you as I see fit."

Daehler swallowed. "My apologies for the disrespect I paid your tribe member's hard-won scars, and your tribal marks. I place my self at your mercy." He didn't sound like he meant a word of it. The crowd muttered displeasure about it.

Scott looked angrier than Danny had ever seen him, and he'd been there when Scott was bitten and wrestling with the wolf. "I don't know your tribe, Daehler," Scott said. "In mine, we respect the past, and those who wore these marks before us," here he looked back at Derek, and everyone lowered their eyes, "and we consider ourselves honored to be allowed to wear them. Disrespect them," Scott's eyes went red, "and we take it as disrespect to all who have worn them."

"And oh, you do not want to do that," said Stiles. Derek looked skyward, which was as close to rolling his eyes as he'd allow himself in the given situation. Scott ignored them both.

"For my judgment, I demand abstention, to give you time and clear-headedness to reflect on what has happened and what I've said."

Danny smiled. Ethan chuckled. Stiles cackled. The summer solstice—the reason they’d all gathered—was the day for thanking the ancestors for the year's life and fertility. After the dawn songs at the stone circle, they'd run back to the camping grounds and dance through the wooden circle at the center of the grounds. The night would be full of feasting, drinking, and loving. Scott was demanding that Daehler abstain from the running, dancing, and nighttime celebrations, which was the most grown-up way of taking away a person's toys that Danny had ever seen. It was brilliant, really.

Daehler tucked his chin against his chest, which was as good as a verbal acceptance of Scott's judgment. Danny untangled his staff from Daehler's arms. Scott flashed his tribe a bright smile, because he knew he’d done something right and he still had something guileless in him, and dragged Daehler away to find Daehler's tribe leader and report the incident. Danny twirled his staff in one hand, just because. "The northern post, huh?" Ethan's camping grounds were near there—he'd have to go completely out of his way to see the Daehler incident, but none of the wolves had reacted like they heard a lie.

Ethan grinned, and acted like he was trying to hide it. "I was returning to my camping grounds...when someone mentioned you had the same watch at the west post."

Danny didn't know what to say to that. He knew what he looked like, but he wasn't used to such blatant flirting from such a beautiful man. He settled for a small smile, because he couldn't help but be impressed.

Ethan grinned in response. "I liked seeing you like that," he said, like he was a little surprised.

"Savor it," Derek advised. "Danny's usually the only sane one around here." Stiles made an affronted face.

"I will," said Ethan. Danny prayed he wasn't blushing. Ethan gestured to the scars on Danny's sides. "Do they talk to you at all?"

Danny shook his head. "Only before a bad storm or a big snow. I was a kid. A wild wolf attacked my tribe, killed everyone but me."

Ethan's face didn't seem to know what it wanted to do. "You killed it?"

"Her," Danny said. "And yes. I had a knife, she had a throat." He shrugged.

Ethan skimmed his fingertips, light as a feather, over one of the scars. "If you could, would you heal them? Take the bite? You'd make a good wolf."

"I don't really want to," said Danny. "They make me feel like a survivor."

Ethan's smile was small and soft. "I really hope you are."

It shouldn't have made Danny suspicious—they lived in a dangerous and wild world—but something about it, something about Ethan, made it seem like there was a specific event to be survived. Ethan walked away before Danny could pin it down.

"Well I think I know who Danny's spending solstice night with," Stiles said, and if Danny were anybody else he would find Stiles' knowing look annoying. Lydia, who was just coming out of their tent, stopped and looked at Stiles, then Derek, then Stiles again. Derek didn't see. Stiles gaped like a fish and said, "Stop, no, I retract that statement."

"Good," said Lydia. "Give me an oatcake, peasant."

-

That evening, when the wolf-tribes met apart to discuss hunting grounds, territories, and other things that didn't apply to non-wolf-tribes, Danny found out that Ethan was an alpha. In a tribe made up entirely of alphas. He found this out because Ethan's tribe—Aiden, Deucalion, Ennis, and Kali—had a Druid lay a circle of mountain ash around the meeting tent and laid claws on the throats of a human from every tribe. Ennis grabbed Stiles.

"Move, and your pets die," Deucalion said.

Scott, Isaac, and Derek and Peter's marks seemed to glow with their eyes: red, gold, light blue. Danny wished his eyes could glow, so he could show Ethan how _bad_ an idea this was.

"Every wolf in this room," Deucalion said, "has an opportunity to become like us. You have an opportunity to have all the power of an alpha, and then some. You need not be an alpha already. All you have to do...is kill every member of your tribe. Become all-powerful. Help us rule these weaklings whose proper place is in our shadow.”

Not this again, Danny thought. Not this again.

"And, be advised: if you do _not_ kill your tribe, someone else will."

No one moved. No one breathed. No one would come, either—the wolf-tribe meetings always featured growling and snarls.

"Lydia?" Peter asked.

Lydia trembled, but her voice was strong. "Only three people die tonight," she said, staring at Deucalion. "I hear wood breaking."

Kali bared her teeth. "You want to be the first, grave worm?"

A wolf growled, and Danny was surprised to see it was Aiden.

Ennis roared and Stiles darted away, grabbing the woman Ethan pushed at him. Derek charged at Ennis as soon as Stiles was clear—Danny saw Stiles' knife still in Ennis' back, the serrated one Stiles had notched himself to make it harder to pull out. Scott took Deucalion. Isaac and Peter rushed Kali. Allison reached for the ring knives she'd strapped to her legs under her skirt. Danny lunged towards the captive humans, staff at the ready.

Ethan met him, pushing the other humans ahead of him. Stiles still held onto the blonde woman who had scratches on her throat from Ethan's claws. "Take care of them, but don't break the circle. Deucalion can't escape." Then he turned heel and went to help Scott. Danny shepherded all the non-wolves over to a corner of the tent marginally farthest from the fighting. He saw Ethan and Aiden shift into one giant wolf—some gift borne of being true twins, he reasoned—and join Derek in his fight with Ennis. Scott and Peter struggled against Deucalion, whose wolf form was warped and hard to look at. Isaac and Allison did better against Kali, but not by much.

"Use the knife, dirt-for-brains," Stiles shouted, and Derek unleashed a kick that slammed Stiles' knife further into Ennis' back, so that less than a handspan's worth of hilt still showed. Danny heard voices outside the tent, but Stiles was telling the others to guard the circle and explain the situation before Danny could register the need.

"How do you kill a wolf?" Danny asked.

"Hurt them beyond their healing," said Lydia. Her eyes were wide, seeing things that they couldn't. "Beheading. Bisection. Burning."

Isaac got clawed across the cheek by Kali's toenails. Stiles and Danny looked at each other. "How many knives do you have left?" Danny asked. Stiles pulled one out of each boot, his face grim.

"This won't be pretty."

Deucalion threw Peter so far, he bounced off the mountain ash barrier.

"Not much choice," said Danny.

Derek and Ethan/Aiden were holding their own against Ennis, and Scott was as much an alpha as Deucalion, so Danny and Stiles turned toward Kali. Her quickness was the biggest problem, and her flexibility. If they could circle her, box her in, give her less room to move...

"We'll need something sharp," said Stiles.

"Yeah," Danny said. He turned to Lydia. "Do you still have...?"

She reached under her skirt and unwound the cord around her thigh. It looked like rope, but she'd made it from very carefully shredded, treated, and woven rowan bark. Kali wouldn't be able to cut through it. Lydia's piece was very thin and very long, which was perfect for what they had in mind.

Danny and Stiles joined Allison and Isaac. Kali grinned when she saw Danny's staff, and snarled when the rowan wood repelled her grip. Its length and powers helped contain her, and when they had her surrounded, Stiles yelled, "Cover," and Lydia screamed. Danny never got used to it, not really, but he grit his teeth and got into position while Kali was doubled over. He, Stiles, and Allison took one end of the rope, threw a loop around Kali's neck, and Isaac caught the other end. They pulled. Danny closed his eyes, or focused on the dark red paint under Stiles' ear. He heard her shrieking and cursing until suddenly, the rope went slack, and Danny fell to the ground with Stiles and Allison on top of him. Isaac appeared, panting, and helped them up.

Deucalion was dead. The other wolves in the tent had snapped come to Scott and Peter's aid. The Daehler alpha had a bloody mouth to match Deucalion's bloody throat, but she looked more disgusted by it than anything else. Silently, Stiles went over and knelt next to the body with his knives out. Danny looked away.

The other wolves had helped Derek, too. Ennis' body from the waist up faced one way, and his lower body faced the opposite way. Danny didn't put too much thought into that. He scanned Derek for injuries and, seeing none, went over and clapped him on the shoulder. Derek met his eyes with a strange expression. It took Danny a moment to realize why. There was a second, larger body on the ground. Ethan/Aiden's neck was bent at an unhealthy angle. "Saved my life," Derek said. "Bastards."

And then, as Danny watched, the giant wolf split down its seam and into two bodies. Danny was on his knees next to them before he knew he was moving, checking for a bloodbeat in their throats or the sound of breath in their chests. He found both, but only faintly. He shouted for Deaton. Lydia was with him. Ethan's hand twitched.

-

Deaton unnerved Danny—unnerved everyone—because he had no tribal marks. The skin of his bare chest, as dark as Boyd's had been, gleamed in the meager light that filtered through his healing tent. He lacked even the white swirls of a Druid. But, he knew his work.

"They won't be alphas after this," he said. "The power it takes to heal themselves—it'll sap all their extra strength. They'll be regular wolves."

Ethan wouldn't mind, Danny thought, not beyond the loss of a tribe. He'd helped keep people safe. Derek said he and Aiden had saved his life. Ethan looked so soft, so young, even as Danny had to hold his head while his neck healed.

Aiden and Ethan were blinking awake before nightfall. Danny was still there, with Lydia and Scott. Aiden murmured something that made Lydia roll her eyes and bite back a smile. Aiden kissed her palm. Ethan looked up at Danny, but all Danny could do was smooth back his hair. It wasn't his place to make promises, and he wasn't ready to admit to the way his heart pounded when Ethan looked at him. The way it _always_ pounded when Ethan looked at him. Danny traced the spiny ridges of the marks on Ethan's cheek, reminding himself of his loyalties and what other bearers of those marks had tried to do to his tribe.

Scott kneeled down next to them. "I want to thank you," he said to Ethan. "For protecting Derek and the others."

Ethan met Scott's eyes squarely, with purpose. "My brother and I, we're not perfect," he said. "But we know what's right and what's not." Scott made a particular kind of skeptical face where his eyebrows tried to be serious and his mouth couldn't help but smile. Danny had seen that face compel truthfulness and a returning grin, as it compelled Ethan. "We didn't always, but we're better now."

Scott chuckled. "Aiden says I need you in my tribe."

"You don't," Ethan said. "We could give you more power, if you wanted it. But you don't."

Scott looked at Ethan with true respect in his eyes. "What will you do, if you can't find a new tribe?"

"We won't be safe," Ethan admitted, "but we won't be on unfamiliar ground, either."

Scott nodded and looked over his shoulder at Aiden and Lydia, still talking quietly. "Come find me on the last day of the gathering," Scott said.

Ethan nodded, his soft brown hair rubbing against Danny's knee.

-

The night before the solstice, all the tribes set out for the stone circle to the west. Danny walked with his tribe down to the river in the dark, between Stiles and Lydia. Scott, Allison, and Isaac walked in front of them; Derek and Peter walked behind. In the quiet of the blue pre-dawn world, Danny smiled to think how the wolves fell into an order that would best protect their tribe-mates, still riding the instinct surge from Deucalion's attempted massacre. Danny looked around, and saw Ethan and Aiden walking nearby. Everyone else had painted their tribe marks afresh for the solstice—Ethan and Aiden had washed theirs clean. They each had two lines of poison-frog green drawn in a corner around one eye, as if with their own fingers (left eye for one twin, right eye for the other, and as soon as Danny could figure out which was which, that distinction would be marvelously helpful). On the sacred day for rebirth, Danny thought it fitting that they present themselves to the ancestors in a way that reflected the new beginning they wanted.

The twin with the corner over his right eye looked over at him and smiled warmly. Ethan. Danny would remember. They held gazes for a few moments, and turned forward again at the same time.

No one spoke on the walk to the stone circle, except for the river and the wind through the trees. When the light was more gray than blue, they reached the wide uphill trail. As they climbed it, someone ahead started a marching tune, a simple hum that grew in power as more voices joined in. All the thousands of people matched their step to the rhythm, and they moved as one organism, one beating heart, and the dawn grew nearer and nearer. The stone circled seemed to rise out of the ground as they crested the hill, a window onto the rising sun.

The women—the bringers of life—began to sing. Danny had tried to recall the song many times, and the men of his tribe had tried to help, but there was layer upon layer of melodies and harmonies to the point where they'd never been able to replicate it. Allison and Lydia, heart-sisters and tribe-mates and standing right next to each other, always sang different parts. Somewhere, one of the men had picked a low complimentary note to hum beneath the women's song, and the rest hummed along. The song built in volume and complexity as the dawn drew nearer, pulling the sun up. Danny reached out and found Stiles' and Lydia's hands as they reached for his, and through them he felt the connection to Scott and Allison and Isaac and Derek and Peter, and Ethan and Aiden, and all the tribes beyond. For this time, they were one. They were life.

The sun burst into the sky like a cracked egg onto Stiles' cooking-stone, and they all threw up their joined hands and cheered. Danny always expected to be tired by this time, after walking all that way from the gathering grounds, but the ancestors always blessed him with a pure energy he never felt on any other day. When the run began, he kept pace with the wolves all the way to the crest of the hill. Ethan turned and ran backwards and grinned at him, before the trail turned downhill and the wolves switched to running on all fours. They snarled and growled and roared at each other, but the sounds were playful and triumphant and free. Danny howled himself as he sprinted down the hill, Stiles and Allison and Lydia keeping stride with him. They ran down to the river fast enough to see the wolves swinging around tree trunks and branches, flipping over logs, leaping great distances when there was little need. Danny jumped over dips and patches of mud and jumped up to hit high branches with his fingers, just because he could. Stiles slipped and slid around, arms wheeling, but never losing speed or his grin, unconscious of his lack of grace for once. Allison and Lydia giggled, silent and slim and occasionally shrieking. Some of the other non-wolves pushed their tribe-mates into the river, but only the ones who would resurface with a laugh or a good-natured curse.

Deep in the trees, Danny sensed movement—the wolves following their own traditions by hunting for their tribes and lovers. It gave them something to do while the non-wolves caught up, and Danny howled his joy to the wind for Scott and Isaac and Derek and Peter.

The non-wolves pulled ahead of the wolves' hunting grounds and started up the easy trail to the gathering grounds and the wooden circle. There was an unspoken, frenzy-fueled kind of competition between the wolves and non-wolves of who could get to the wooden circle first every year. Reason said that the wolves should win every year with their superior speed and strength, but no one really kept a record, and the stories always said that the two sides were pretty evenly matched.

They were in the gathering grounds, the wooden circle in sight, when the wolves burst out of the western woods, laden with the fruits of their hunting. A cheer went up through the crowd of non-wolves, and Danny pushed his legs just that little bit harder. He and Stiles laid first hands on the circle's wooden posts, Allison and Lydia on their heels. The wolves dispersed to store their kills in their tents and bring the mead, as was the lot of the later party. Someone brought a pipe, and another brought a drum, and the dancing began. They clasped hands and released them, wove between each other and the wooden posts, moved in a pattern that took a dancer from the outermost circle to the center and out again. The older hearth-keepers set up the big fire pits and the roasting spits. Danny spun and jumped and danced until he couldn't breathe, and then found himself half-stumbling, half-dragged to a seat by a fire pit. A cup was thrust into his hand.

"Drink," said Ethan, who'd done the dragging and thrusting. "You'll collapse before the fun really starts."

Danny drank, and his cup held water, not mead.

"Water first, mead later," said Ethan, seeing his face. He was grinning. The day was bright, the sky was clear, and the sun hadn't even reached its highest point. Ethan sat next to him with a plump, dead brown rabbit and started skinning it. Danny looked around for his tribe-mates. Isaac and Allison were still dancing in the wooden circle—so was Stiles, with an orange-marked woman who'd lost her lover a few moons ago and deserved a little happiness. Lydia had put on her dignity and lounged artfully with a group of banshees, pretending not to watch Aiden dance. Derek and Peter sat at another fire pit, taking great pleasure in seeming above all the revelry. Scott stood with a Yukimura woman, smiling and watching his tribe be happy.

The good morning turned into a good afternoon. Ethan replenished Danny's water until he felt he could dance again, and then made Danny eat something before actually dancing. When Danny was finished, Ethan handed his skinned rabbit over to the fire pit's hearth-keeper and asked Danny to dance. They danced until they were hungry and thirsty, satisfied themselves, and then danced again. The sun reached its peak and began its slow descent. The dances grew less organized, and Danny's contact with Ethan went from a handclasp, to arms around each other's waists, to the heat of him pressed all along Danny's body from ankle to hip to shoulder. The dancing finally broke down for feasting in earnest, but the music played on. Ethan took Danny back to the first fire pit and presented Danny with the rabbit he'd skinned that morning.

"Honeyed rabbit," Ethan said, "slow roasted. I asked Stiles."

Ethan's expression was so earnest, so worried, that Danny accepted the rabbit without pausing to think about the implications. It felt right, and he hadn't had enough mead to distrust that feeling. He _had_ had enough mead, however, to not think to hold back the moan when he bit into the rabbit. The meat was tender and sweet, not exactly the way Stiles cooked it, but still delicious. Danny picked the bones clean. Ethan looked extremely pleased with himself.

"I feel bad that I don't have anything to give in return," Danny said.

Ethan shrugged. "We don't do it to get something in return," he said. "We do it because we want to. I'm just glad you liked it."

Danny leaned over and kissed him with sweet, greasy lips. "I liked it."

-

Ethan was in his lap, all around him, moving a storm all heat and lightning beneath Danny's skin for the third time that day. Danny bit and sucked at Ethan's collar, and then Ethan's neck when he bared it, thrilling that these marks were the only ones on Ethan's skin. Ethan held Danny close, pressed chest-to-chest, one hand around Danny's neck and the other reaching back and down, searching for where Danny was still stretched from their second time together. Danny gasped at the feeling and pulled Ethan's head down for kissing. Ethan was soft and gold in the light of the approaching sunset. All around them, the music and feasting went on, other couples moved and laughed in the deepening shadows, and Danny felt warm and light from the mead and Ethan's hands on his skin.

Ethan must have felt him drifting, because his body closed down on Danny inside of him, and Danny groaned and panted open-mouthed against Ethan's cheek, curled his arms around Ethan's back and over his shoulders. Ethan rolled down on him like rough water against the riverbank, and Danny held him all the closer. He wanted to crawl inside Ethan as far as he could go, he wanted to be surrounded by Ethan's warmth and strength and laughter.

Danny trembled with the effort of staying upright, but there was no way he was taking his hands off of Ethan, not even to hold himself up. Ethan smiled into their kissing, then laughed, then said "Come on," and shifted his weight backwards. Danny followed, blindly, and then Ethan was on his back in the dust, with Danny still inside him. Ethan's ankles hooked around Danny's hips, and the new angle made them groan into each other's mouths. Somehow, Ethan reached down to keep playing with Danny's hole, and the spark of sensations burst along Danny's spine. His hips drove faster and harder into Ethan.

"You're perfect," Ethan said, senseless and sex-drunk. "You feel perfect and you look—" Ethan pushed a clumsy hand through Danny's hair, grabbed a handful and pulled him down into more kissing, with lots of tongue and biting. "And you _smell_..."

Danny was part of a wolf-tribe, he knew how important smell was to them, but he couldn't help it. He started laughing too hard to kiss, and he hitched up one of Ethan's legs higher to change the angle and make up for how his hips lost their rhythm. He grinned down at Ethan. "What do I smell like?"

Ethan pulled him close and tucked his nose into Danny's neck, right behind Danny's ear. "You smell sweet, but not too sweet, and…nutty. So good." He lifted his hips against Danny's, pulling him deeper inside and pushing deeper inside Danny with his fingers. Danny felt him, hard and wet and pressed between them. Danny raked his teeth against the soft spot just under Ethan's jaw he'd found during their first time, the spot that triggered a full-body shudder. "You're so good," Ethan said, breathy and beautiful. Danny's hips moved faster. " _Everything_. The way your hands look holding your staff." Danny laughed. "I wanted to kiss you when you took down that Daehler."

Danny changed tactics, switched to long, hard thrusts that made Ethan arch and go wordless. "Something tells me you wanted to do more than just kiss me."

Ethan groaned. "I wanted—I wanted to know if you could take me down as easily. I wanted to know if you could hold me down. I wanted to see if I could talk you up enough that you'd do it without me asking."

Danny immediately grabbed the hands in his hair and his ass and pinned them by the wrists above Ethan's head. "Do you have your answer?" Even to his own ears, it sounded like a growl.

Ethan tightened around him, _all_ around him, and strained up against Danny's hold on his wrists, and _whined_ as he came. Danny kept moving through Ethan's shudders, and the trembling after, so close to his own edge, right there, right there—but it was Ethan's face, Ethan's sleepy-satisfied-stupidhappy adoring face, that had Danny thrusting deep and the heat roaring all the way down to his toes and all the way up to his eyes, blinding him with white bursts of light. When he came back to himself, he was breathing into Ethan's neck. Ethan was drawing light patterns on his back. Danny rose and fell with Ethan's chest as he breathed, deep and content.

"I love summer solstice," Ethan said. Danny laughed, lifted his head, and kissed Ethan, simple and light. Carefully, they separated and found a log to lean against together while they watched the last colors of the sunset fade. Ethan found an abandoned, half-full cask of mead and some cups. They sat in silence for a while, Danny's legs slung over Ethan's and Ethan's arm around Danny's shoulders, until Ethan said, "I may have some alarming news."

Danny made a questioning noise.

"Stiles is sleeping on top of Derek, and they're both naked."

Danny followed Ethan's nod, saw Stiles drooling on Derek's shoulder, and snorted. "About time."

-

When the McCall tribe left the gathering grounds, they left with three new people wearing their marks: Ethan, Aiden, and Kira, the woman from Yukimura. Ethan and Aiden's were the same green color they'd been before, but now they reminded Danny more of spring leaves than poison frogs. Kira's were purple. She wasn't a wolf, but she wasn't human either—she walked with Lydia when she didn't walk with Scott. It was a little impulsive on Scott's part, Danny thought, but he could see how easily Kira could fit with them. And, really, Danny couldn't talk.

He walked hand-in-hand with Ethan whenever the road was flat. 

**Author's Note:**

> You can check out my other writing on my tumblr, kit-moosebuckle, by clicking the "My Writing" button on the left side of the screen. I also run a small fic rec side blog (moosebuckle-ficrecs). Come say hi! :)


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